Surgical Weight-Loss Procedures

If surgery is the right solution for your weight-loss goals, we want to make sure you get the procedure that’s best for you and your needs. That’s why Mount Carmel offers three types of bariatric surgical solutions — sleeve gastrectomy, the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery and adjustable gastric banding procedure. All have proven safe and effective in providing effective long-term control.

During a sleeve gastrectomy, approximately 80 percent of the stomach is removed, leaving it in the shape of a tube or “sleeve.” Since it’s a laparoscopic surgery, it requires several small incisions rather than one large one. The weight loss most patients can achieve through sleeve gastrectomy is typically greater than with gastric banding but less than gastric bypass. And if you and your surgeon feel the weight loss you achieve with this approach is inadequate, you can have a second procedure to convert your sleeve gastrectomy to a gastric bypass.

Gastric bypass surgery is a permanent solution during which our surgeons make the stomach smaller and allow food to bypass part of the small intestine. As a result, you’ll feel full more quickly than when the stomach was its original size, which reduces the amount of calories you can consume. Gastric bypass can be performed using open, laparoscopic and robotic techniques, is a more established procedure, and can result in faster weight loss even though the recovery takes a little longer.

During adjustable gastric banding a band is applied around the stomach, creating a small gastric pouch and a calibrated opening to the rest of the stomach. This system limits the amount of food that the stomach will hold and controls the flow of food to the digestive tract. As the name suggests, it’s adjustable. It’s also reversible and has a decreased risk of complications, and, because it’s minimally invasive, it requires a shorter hospital stay and allows for a quicker recovery.